Mountain bike crowds join forces

ELIZABETHTOWN | Barkeater Trail Alliance (BETA) in Wilmington and the mountain bike crowd in Elizabethtown joined forces this summer to put their hard work on one, big regional map.

With thousands of hours of work put into them, trails were built with purpose and respect mostly by volunteers: part quest, part challenge, part celebration.

Jeff Allott, who owns Otis Mountain, has helped define trail development at Otis and at Blueberry Hill.

And he is building bikes in one of his new ventures, Solace Cycles. The technology adapts to fit individual technique.

Photo courtesy Barkeater Trails Alliance

FORMING PARTNERSHIPS

When the Elizabethtown build-and-ride crew approached BETA, they were initially looking just for a place on the BETA trail map.

“Which by default included their envelope,” Allott said. “We pulled together all of our GPS files to allow for that and created a great map that shows trails in Lake Placid, Saranac Lake, Wilmington and Elizabethtown. We’ve formed a really nice partnership.”

Artisans in Westport are cutting and scribing all the signs for the expanded BETA trail system now.

“They’ll all have the same design.”

Allott said attention from Bike Magazine in August and from riders outside the region predicts growing enthusiasm for Adirondack mountain bike trails.

Bike technology is up to the task.

Allott remembers tuning the first mountain bikes built in the 1980s.

“We’re in that second bump now with biking. And this bump is a big one. It’s improved because the technology changed; you can ride better and on more terrain than you could 10 years ago,” Allott said.

But not all trails are the same. Adirondack forests set their own courses, most without machines or man-made features.

And the difference between machine-built versus hand-built trails isn’t so subtle.

“We have one or two machine-built trails over here in E’town, because we had to,” Allott said of their system’s design.

“But most trails in the Adirondacks are hand-built so mountain bike riders have to use the terrain. People like the ruggedness of the hand-cut trails, it becomes a much more technique-based experience,” Allott said.

“A lot of these trails look like herd paths. We use a lot of deer trails, the deer are pretty smart,” he laughed.

ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT

Trail construction in Elizabethtown this summer is pressing to connect Otis on the southwestern side of town to Blueberry in the northeast.

“Lloyd Curry has opened his land for trails now, plus the 700 acres at Otis and 900 acres at Blueberry. It’s not fully utilized yet, but when that day comes it’s going to be amazing,” Allott said.

A similar expansion is happening on mostly state forest lands in Wilmington, with select connections in planning on private properties.

Keith McKeever, a founding member of BETA, said the bond with Elizabethtown’s crew multiplied opportunity for hamlet-to-hamlet recreation.

“And we’re definitely psyched about that,” McKeever said.

The web of trails in Wilmington is built off the hamlet center, so many trails start just beyond a motel door.

But like Allott, McKeever sees forest bike trail development as organic.

“Riding a mountain bike is like a deer running through the forest,” McKeever said. “A bike trail is a single track between 18 to 24 inches wide, you want it like a deer run, so you can follow the terrain and not alter it, which makes for better riding.”

McKeever said features like the one in Bike Magazine shine a spotlight on something special about locals and their trails.

FUNDING SOUGHT

BETA and Elizabethtown have created courses almost entirely with volunteer work crews.

And they’re nearing critical mass.

“With a funding push, we could definitely be an international destination within a two to five-year time frame,” McKeever said.

“Then, as we get this done, other places in the (Adirondack) park are going to see more mountain bikers coming in. They’d be able to come here and ride for three or four days staying right in these towns, the trailheads close to their door,” McKeever said.

“It’s really key that the job get finished here.”

BETA sees a big part of the last push in another 35 miles of trails planned in Saranac Lakes Wild Forest.

Those can move forward once the Unit Management Plan is finalized and approved by state agencies.

It would send BETA mountain bike trail options beyond 100 miles.

At BETA, Executive Director Josh Wilson said trail potential in the Saranac Lakes Wild Forest was one of the reasons BETA formed in the first place.

“We think it’s pretty close to being approved by the Adirondack Park Agency. It covers so much of the state land that’s available for mountain bike access between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid. We started to work in Wilmington, in 2010, as model for single-track.”

Although mountain bike routes in Wilmington are built in conjunction with DEC, the Adirondack identity and signature comes from community, Wilson said.

Volunteers show up consistently.

They heft hand tools to places where machines cannot go.

“The real reason that this is happening is because it creates community. A lot of locals are getting into mountain bikes,” Wilson said.

“It’s always been this regional effort, but each town has its own identity.”

The BETA connection to Elizabethtown is venerable.

“We did recognize early on that one town isn’t going to have the density of trails to be a destination on its own, but when combined, they provide real opportunity,” Wilson said

“We’re really poised to reach that reality. What’s proposed in Saranac Lake and Lake Placid would be the icing on the cake.

“Really, what we’d love to see is a direct state investment in trail construction on state lands, so that we can employ work crews specific to mountain bike trails,” Wilson said.

BETA uses funds they raise and grant proceeds when they can to hire a professional trail crew.

Wilson said it was good progress this summer.

“Certainly we can and we will continue to do all we can to develop and improve and expand the trail systems in all the towns. The question is how quickly does it happen?”

BETA is looking to close a loop off Bonneville Road in Wilmington with a climb to a 3,000-foot summit view of the entire Flume trail system.

At Otis and Blueberry, Allott and crew are looking to connect the trail systems through town and establish a bike ranch on private property next to Blueberry.

Continued tech adaptation means some trails can be used all year long.

So who knows how far recreation options here will reach.

“We rode year-round at Otis and Blueberry last year,” Allott said of the shifting climate.

People adapt, too.

“If there is snow people stud the tires. If there’s a lot a snow, we fire up the (ski) lifts at Otis,” Allott said.

“There’s no doubt trails here in the Adirondacks are different than anywhere else.”

BIKE MAGAZINE: Rugged Purity

Unified, the eastern Adirondack’s all-volunteer parties at BETA and in E’town got in-depth coverage from Bike Magazine in early August.

The feature, “The garden of earthly delights: rugged purity meets hedonistic flow in the Adirondacks’ Eastern High Peaks,” was written by Jonathon Weber.

His first-person sense of adventure captured an emerging sense of cohesion in trail systems here, evolved through what he calls “leave-no-trace” trail construction, a trait fast becoming the region’s mountain bike track signature.

Weber and his film crew spent about a week touring and testing forest bike routes from Wilmington to Saranac Lake, from Lake Placid to Elizabethtown.

Their journey found narrow, sinuous challenges on trails like The Ridge at the Flume Network in Wilmington, The Lussi and Logger trails in Lake Placid, The Cure in Saranac Lake, Joel’s Trail at Blueberry and Flowbee at Otis in Elizabethtown.

Weber discovered systems making a unique a path into bike recreation.

“Locals in the Eastern High Peaks take their responsibility to maintain the rugged character that defines their home seriously,” Weber writes.

In the Adirondack Park, he said, “preservation policy is tactile.”

FIND YOUR RIDE:

The new BETA trail maps are available at area information centers.

Mountain bike enthusiasts have options to meet and ride with local groups:

Dirt Church begins at Otis Mountain in Elizabethtown at 9 a.m. on Sundays.

Every Thursday, mountain biker riders in Elizabethtown round up for a 6 p.m. cruise at Blueberry, using the Bronson Way parking area off Roscoe Road.

Comments (2)

Mountain Biking

Introducing children to mountain biking is CRIMINAL. Mountain biking, besides being expensive and very environmentally destructive, is extremely dangerous. Recently a 12-year-old girl DIED during her very first mountain biking lesson! Another became quadriplegic at 13! Serious accidents and even deaths are commonplace. Truth be told, mountain bikers want to introduce kids to mountain biking because (1) they want more people to help them lobby to open our precious natural areas to mountain biking and (2) children are too naive to understand and object to this activity. For 600+ examples of serious accidents and deaths caused by mountain biking, see http://mjvande.info/mtb_dangerous.htm.

Bicycles should not be allowed in any natural area. They are inanimate objects and have no rights. There is also no right to mountain bike. That was settled in federal court in 1996: http://mjvande.info/mtb10.htm . It's dishonest of mountain bikers to say that they don't have access to trails closed to bikes. They have EXACTLY the same access as everyone else -- ON FOOT! Why isn't that good enough for mountain bikers? They are all capable of walking....

A favorite myth of mountain bikers is that mountain biking is no more harmful to wildlife, people, and the environment than hiking, and that science supports that view. Of course, it's not true. To settle the matter once and for all, I read all of the research they cited, and wrote a review of the research on mountain biking impacts (see http://mjvande.info/scb7.htm ). I found that of the seven studies they cited, (1) all were written by mountain bikers, and (2) in every case, the authors misinterpreted their own data, in order to come to the conclusion that they favored. They also studiously avoided mentioning another scientific study (Wisdom et al) which did not favor mountain biking, and came to the opposite conclusions.

Mountain bikers also love to build new trails - legally or illegally. Of course, trail-building destroys wildlife habitat - not just in the trail bed, but in a wide swath to both sides of the trail! E.g. grizzlies can hear a human from one mile away, and smell us from 5 miles away. Thus, a 10-mile trail represents 100 square miles of destroyed or degraded habitat, that animals are inhibited from using. Mountain biking, trail building, and trail maintenance all increase the number of people in the park, thereby preventing the animals' full use of their habitat.

Mountain biking accelerates erosion, creates V-shaped ruts, kills small animals and plants on and next to the trail, drives wildlife and other trail users out of the area, and, worst of all, teaches kids that the rough treatment of nature is okay (it's NOT!). What's good about THAT?

For more information: http://mjvande.info/mtbfaq.htm .

Michael J Vandeman80 days ago

Internet Troll Alert

Mike Vandeman is a notorious anti-mountain bike internet troll who copies and pastes this same tired rant on every mountain bike related news story or website he can find. He was arrested in 2010 and charged with assault with a deadly weapon following an incident in which he struck a passing mountain biker with a hand saw on a trail in California. He has also been charged in relation to 3 other similar assaults.